


In the Margins

by norgbelulah



Series: The Margins [2]
Category: Justified
Genre: Coda, Conspiracy, Gen, Government, M/M, Memory Loss, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 08:19:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fred Atwood hates Kentucky.  He's hated it ever since he walked through a dense white fog and met two boys who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Margins

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to Thornfield_girl for holding my hand and cheering me on on this little accidental series. <3

Fred Atwood pretty much hated Kentucky. For a long time, he hated Kentucky and still did, for the same reasons. But he wasn’t about to tell his dear friend Art Mullen all about them as he was sitting in the man’s Lexington office. So he just said, “Yeah, sorry I don’t get out to these parts much.”

“Well, you’re a busy man,” Art said understandingly as he handed him a tumbler that was a quarter inch full of bourbon. Fred wished for some rocks, but didn’t want to seem like a pussy.

It was true, though, he was a busy man and he was getting tired of it. He told Art so.

“You’re thinking of retiring?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Fred said. He’d been thinking about the old days a lot more, the early days, when he’d seen and participated in some things he didn’t really like. It bothered him a lot more than it used to. He was tired of keeping his mouth clamped shut. He was worried it was going to burst open some day soon and let the flood waters out, lose him his retirement and his credibility.

He didn’t tell Art this, but there’s a look that man gets, when he feels like he’s got your number. He was giving it to Fred now. “Shut the hell up, Arthur,” he said.

Art just laughed into his drink.

Fred looked unhappily into his glass and when he raised his eyes he saw a tall man in a--gospel-truth--cowboy hat walk in, leading a slightly less tall man towards the conference room. The second man had some weird hair and looked incredibly pleased with himself, or with the state of the world he was living in. The man in the hat, looked less pleased. In fact, he looked pissed as hell and riled about it.

It was the faces of the two men that caught Fred’s attention. They weren’t familiar exactly, Fred had only ever seen them once, but they were a pair of faces he would never forget. They were why he hated Kentucky.

“Oh, shit,” Art said, looking too. “The last time those two were in there together they broke my glass door.”

Fred knew his eyes were bugging out. “Who are they?” he asked, too quickly, too insistent. He watched them talking through the blinds on Art’s door. The one with the hat, he’d been the boy on his back with big eyes and bruises on his arms. The other one, with the hair and the high collar, he’d been the protective one, who’d called the other boy his, but smiled just as sweet when Alan’s fucking baby had blown back across the highway.

“Oh, that’s just Raylan and his hillbilly shitkicker boyfriend,” Art said, voice light.

Fred whirled on him. He nearly spilled his drink. “What?”

Art stared at him. “I’m kidding, Fred,” he said frowning. Fred just stared at him until he went on, “Man in the hat, that’s Raylan Givens, one of my deputies--”

“He’s a Marshal?” Fred asked, genuinely surprised. He hadn’t expected that.

“Yeah.” Art said. “He’s more trouble than he’s worth half the time. Regular gunslinger, or so he likes to think. He’s a fast sonofabitch for sure, but he toes the line on procedure and he acts like he’s hot fucking shit.”

Fred looked back at him. He was talking animatedly with the other man. Riled for sure. Fred liked the sound of him, though. “He looks too old for that shit,” he said.

“Yeah, well so do you,” Art retorted.

“Touche,” Fred said.

“Raylan’s from around here, too. The man he’s...yeah, I guess they’re talking. Anyway, the man in there is Boyd Crowder. They’re from the same place. Boyd’s been a petty crime lord of some kind or other about as long as Raylan’s been a Marshal.”

“But they know each other? From before that?” Fred knows he sounds too interested. He can’t take his eyes off them either. They’re still talking animatedly, arguing really. Raylan’s eyes are narrowed, his mouth a thin, small frown of displeasure. Boyd, on the other hand, is almost smiling, talking calmly, hands at rest in his pockets. 

“Yeah, Raylan says they knew each other from just workin’ in the mine out of high school, but their daddies went way back too, so who the fuck knows. I’m still a little pissed at him for not being more upfront about his ties down in that county. They’ve bitten us hard in the ass this past year.”

“Bitten him probably harder than you,” Fred said.

“He always makes it out okay.” Art shrugged.

“And you don’t?”

“Now it’s your turn to shut up, asshole,” Art said. “What’s got you so interested anyway?”

Fred turned to his friend, frowning. He went for it. “You remember that thing I never told you about, back when I wasn’t doing that side contract work in the late 80s, early 90s?”

“Chemical weapons?”

“Yeah, the ones that don’t exist.”

“Right.”

“They dropped a weird one, in the sticks, way far up in the hills out near Harlan. They wanted to see what it would do with the wind patterns and the geography of a mountainous region.”

Art’s brows raised themselves up high. “Really? Weird how?”

Fred didn’t answer, he just kept talking, “The guy who was working on it, he was going for like a mood enhancement, pacification deal. Something you’d drop on a burgeoning war zone to get everyone to calm down ‘til they could talk it out. That was his vision, anyway. In the lab, all it did was turn the soldiers who volunteered into stupid happy imbeciles who’d do what you say for an hour then fall asleep.”

Art was frowning. “Sounds...harmless. What does this have to do with those two?” He jerked his thumb towards the two men, who were now sort of staring at each other intensely. If they were talking, they weren’t doing it much. Raylan was scowling and Boyd’s eyes were serious.

Fred thinned his lips. “Well, I told you they dropped it on the mountain.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah,” Fred said. “Found a truck parked on the side of the road coming right up the mountain we dropped it on. The population had all been evac’ed, but that truck,” he stuck a finger out towards Art’s conference room, “ _those boys_ missed the road block.”

“They drove through the stuff?”

“They stopped in the middle,” Fred told him. “Good thing, too, because they were miles in. Any longer by my guess and they probably would have driven right off the road.”

“So they just sat in it,” Art said.

“Yep. But the thing about it in the wild was, it wasn’t just these two kids getting high in their car, oh, no no no no. It was blowing around on the wind and they’d get a bunch of it and then none at all and and would pile up on them, then wear off slowly if it didn’t blow through again soon enough. They’d forget things from one minute to the next. They literally forgot I was there, right in front of them, in the blink of an eye. When I found them, they didn’t know their names or what the fuck was going on. They’d got themselves out of the truck and in a...compromising position in the grass on the side of the highway.”

Art frowned and looked over to the two men, then back. “They what? _Those_ two?”

“Hey, I don’t know,” Fred said, raising his hands. “Alan was curious about their interpersonal relationship, said maybe that had something to do with it. He never had that result in the lab, I can tell you, I was there.” 

Fred paused for a minute and he almost didn’t speak again, but Art was a good friend, and now was as good a time as any to just come out with what was on his mind, had been on his mind for the last twenty years. 

He said, “The thing about that stuff, Art, was that it didn’t just make those soldiers, or those boys, happy, or feel good or whatever. They were impressionable. It was like hypnosis. They listened to what you said, because they couldn’t not--I mean, they _had_ to. It was part of the effect. And--at least the soldiers--they listened after the fact, after it wore off. They’d do what you told them when they were under.”

“You think those boys did too?”

Fred shrugged. “Well, it seems like they made it home alive, so yeah. I suppose so.”

“Mind control,” Art murmured.

“It scared the bejeezus out of me. I requested a transfer. I quit contracting after that shit. And I fucking hate Kentucky,” Fred said, but he couldn’t muster any enmity in his tone as he looked at those boys. They were laughing now. Raylan was rubbing the bridge of his nose. Boyd had his elbows far up on the table, like a kid, and like all he wanted was to get closer to Raylan.

“You don’t think they remember it, do you?” Art asked.

Fred shook his head. “I’m certain they don’t.”

“You know, I used to wonder if Boyd Crowder didn’t come in here sayin’ what he was saying and doin’ what he was doing all the time just so he could put a frown on Raylan’s face.”

Fred didn’t think it was ever a frown that boy had been looking for. He’d watched those boys sleep. He’d seen their hands fit together, their heads tilted close. He thought it was funny now, in a sad kind of way, how the world will fuck with a good thing, a thing that could work. It got put in their hands, then snatched right away.

Raylan took his hat off and threw his head back and laughed. And there was that smile on Boyd’s face, no different than it had been in the grass off the road.

“You poor bastards,” Fred murmured. Art made a motion to pour him another drink, but he waved him off and stood, setting the glass down. “I gotta get going, man,” he said.

“All right,” Art said. 

The two men in the conference room looked as though they were on their way out too. Raylan was looking through the glass at Art, who made some kind of motion at him. “Looks like the boy’s got something to tell me,” Art said. “You wanna meet them?”

Fred smiled. “Sure, why not?”

As they left the office, Fred heard Raylan saying over his shoulder at Boyd, “I’m still pissed at you, asshole.”

“Well, Raylan, I will try my very best to rectify that, though it hardly seems like we’re upsetting the status quo between us,” Boyd replied, pouring those big words out of his mouth like a tall glass of water. 

Raylan sort of laughed, but like he didn’t really want to. Fred saw Art roll his eyes. Jesus, were they always like this?

“Hey, Art,” Raylan said as they came through the doors simultaneously. His voice was deeper, rougher than it had been when he was a boy, no surprise there. Boyd was eyeing all three of them up like he was deciding which one of them he could take down first if he had to.

“Raylan, this is an old friend of mine, Fred Atwood,” Art said. “He’s bopped around a few different services over the years. Fred, where the hell are you now? I can never keep track.”

“Here and there,” Fred answered, taking out his enigmatic smile. He was certain both of these men had one they slipped on from time to time. He held out his hand. “Good to meet you, Deputy Givens.”

Raylan stopped in his tracks just outside the door and Boyd slowed just behind him. Fred thought Boyd might reach out and touch his old friend’s shoulder in surprise, but he didn’t. Both their eyes were wide and they were staring and frowning--almost the same expression of disturbed confusion slapped across their faces--straight at Fred.

They must have recognized his voice. How interesting.

Art looked like he’d prefer to turn tail and lock his office door behind him rather than have a strange and awkward conversation about missing memories and mind control fog and gay sex in the middle of the bullpen, but he stood his ground and eyed both men sternly until Raylan sort of blinked and stepped forward again.

Recovering quickly, he took Fred’s hand with an easy grace and an easier smile. “Sir,” he said, correctly assuming Fred outranked him in whatever outfit he wouldn’t cop to being a part of.

Boyd finally stepped through the door and around the other side of Raylan, looking between them all as though he clearly expected to also be introduced. Raylan gave him an exasperated glance and Art stepped up finally, saying, “Fred, this is Boyd Crowder, he’s a...”

“Local businessman,” Boyd cut in and Raylan huffed a not-laugh at him. “Good to meet you, Mr. Atwood.”

Technically, Fred should have been addressed as Agent, but he knew Crowder was fishing, so he didn’t correct him. They shook hands also and he waited the half beat he’d predicted would pass before one of them said, “Have we met before, Sir?” It was Raylan. Boyd would have no logical reason to have ever met a man quite like Fred Atwood. He smiled very friendly-like. “Sorry, if I’ve forgotten, I just don’t want to feel like an asshole later, and you...seem real familiar to me.”

Art was turning sort of red, so Fred decided not to draw this out too much. “I think I just have that kind of face,” Fred said. “Though Art’s been telling me a little bit about your exploits, Deputy.”

Boyd laughed and Raylan looked like he wanted to push him away. Shit, no wonder Art had called them boyfriends. “I hope it wasn’t all paperwork complaints,” Raylan said, maybe too lightly.

“No, it was Internal Affairs investigations too, asshole,” Art retorted. Apparently, this boy could get a bug up everybody’s ass.

“Raylan, you didn’t tell me you’d been in that kind of hot water,” Boyd started to say, smooth again, but playful.

Raylan’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I? And quit lyin’, you knew all about that. You an’ Arlo, that was--” He broke off suddenly, maybe realizing the conversation was best left for another time, or not at all. Boyd had already looked away, surprisingly chastised--from what Fred could see, though it may have all been an act.

“Boys,” Fred said, taking on the stern tone he remembered from that night. 

They both turned to him at once. Boyd even dropped his hands to his side and Raylan’s mouth was slightly parted, as though he’d been about to speak, but the words had fled his brain entirely. 

Fred smiled at them. “Listen, it was great to meet you. Really. But I have to get going,” he said turning away. He wanted to give them both pats on the head or something because they were sort of looking at him like lost puppies, but he stayed strong and walked towards the door.

“Thanks for the drink, Art,” he called back.

“Thanks for the story, Fred,” Art said. “It was...enlightening.”

As Fred opened the door to the hallway, he heard Raylan behind him saying, “What the hell, Art?” He laughed all the way back to his car.

He thought he might find a reason to be in Kentucky again before too much time passed.


End file.
